We’ve seen a number of people this week referring to the first phase of the World T20 as ‘pre-qualifying’. The word they are looking for is of course ‘qualifying’.

Yes, it takes place before the tournament – or pre-tournament if you will – but that’s what qualifying is. It’s qualifying for the tournament. You can’t really carry it out afterwards. The only way that could happen is if the ICC got its way and a new format saw no-one go through. At that point it wouldn’t really be qualifying at all though, would it – what with no-one qualifying and all?

So qualifying has to happen pre-tournament and even if there were another phase before it, that would still be a form of qualifying – it would just be a different phase of a larger qualification process.

So if you want to add an unnecessary prefix, why not go for post- instead? You could legitimately call the tournament proper ‘post-qualifying’ if you wanted. You’ll sound like an idiot at first, but it’ll soon catch on.

I’m having a Cheddar (that’s important) Cheese ‘n’ Marmite Toastie for lunch. The marmite, bread, cheese (cheddar is the best) and butter were all pre-prepared. The knife, plate, chopping board, butter dish and toaster were all manufactured elsewhere.

I put all the pre-prepared bits together using pre-manufactured things made many moons ago to make a toastie that is divine (cheddar is key).

So gorgeous is the cheddar (sic) it qualifies to be prepared into a second toastie…

I can handle the pre-prepared pause before the World T20 really gets underway but my second luscious cheddar-filled toastie has been and gone.

You can all get as mirthful about this matter as you like, but I think KC is raising more than a mere linguistic peccadillo. I think the bona fides of the entire World T20 tournament is called into doubt when we cannot distinguish between the pre-qualified sides (The Big Eight) and those who have to go through a short qualification process or mini tournament in order to join them.

I worry about performance enhancing drugs in sport. I worry about match fixing and spot fixing. I worry about gambling syndicates. I worry about the cart of T20 starting to drag the horse that is world cricket.

Now we have this utter chaos around qualification to worry about – so chaotic that even wise folk seem to get their definitions confused.

I think I’d better go and lie down for a while until the storm passes.

the top-3 from each of seeded group will directly qualify to super-league
the bottom 2 of seed-league & top-2 of unseeded league will fight in an elimination league and 2 out of these 4 (from each of the two groups of elimination league) will fill-up the remaining slots in the super-leagues

the 2 winners of group-A eliminator league will join the top-3 qualifiers from group-B of seeded-league and form group-B of super-league & similarly group-A superleague will be made-up of top-3 of groupA seeded league + top-2 of group-B elimination league . this swapping will allow the results of group stages to be carried forward to the super-league stage thus saving 8 matches from total schedule.

the top-2 of 3 seeded leagues will qualify for an exclusive major-super-league to be played among those 6 teams

the bottom-2 of 3 seeded leagues will meet the top-2 of 3 unseeded leagues in 3 eliminator leagues and 2 from each of these 3 eliminator leagues will qualify for an exclusive minor-super-league to be played among these 6 teams

top-2 from major super league qualify to semis directly
3&4 from major super league qualify to quarters directly
bottom to from major super league play pre-quarters against top-2 of minor super league